'All Berliners should be standing here today'

Published: 01 Mar 2013 16:23 GMT+01:00

Plans to tear down part of the Berlin Wall for a luxury apartment building sparked angry demonstrations on Friday to save the city's East Side Gallery. The Local hit the streets to see what people were saying.

Around 300 protesters gathered in eastern Berlin close to the Spree River to form a human chain near one of the last remaining segments of the once hated Cold War barrier.

Many Berliners are incensed that part of the East Side Gallery, a 1.3-kilometre stretch of the Wall now covered in murals by artists from around the world, is to be moved for a block of luxury flats near the river. The open air gallery is the second most popular visitor attraction in the German capital after the Brandenburg Gate.

After a few tense hours, the demolition work was called off, for today at least, but the anger is likely to remain. Another demonstration is planned for Sunday morning.

Your comments about this article

Italy is full of historical monuments and in comparison to that, German govt. is going to disappoint millions of people by making it a concrete jungle. Mein Gott.

I have taken a lot of pics with East Side Gallery, it's very huge solid wall and they are also selling some pieces of wall as souvenir in Zoologischer Garten. May be they gonna sell the whole wall as Souvenir, who knows. Incredible!

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